I've started and deleted three of these posts, but I think I need to write this, if only to keep a record. In late 2008 I was diagnosed as being severely depressed and began taking medication. For those of you who have experienced this, you know what a miracle it can be to not only have a name for why you feel so horribly wrong, so very Not You, and then to have a chemical administered that puts you on the right foot, so to speak. I almost immediately dropped 40 pounds, I stopped hurting in my joints and muscles, I started being ME.

The pharmacy decided I didn't need the name brand (Welbutrin) any more and gave me the generic. A few hours after taking it, I very calmly planned on driving off a 130 ft bridge to my death until my kids piped up in the backseat of the car and I realized how fucking CRAZY that was. Yeah, don't take generic Welbutrin. I'm not the only person this has ever happened to. (Note: I have never been suicidal. Never. And I'm not now, either. Wow, I'm fun, lol.) My doctor tore the pharmacy a new hole and wrote in my chart: NAME BRAND, NO GENERIC.

Flash to 5 years later (now) when we finally decide to stop going through Canada Pharmacy to get my meds (I can get 90 pills for $240, instead of what Walgreens/CVS wants to charge me, which is $402 for 30.) and make my insurance pay for it, seeing as we pay an arm and a leg for BCBS's best plan and it should only cost me $40 for a 90 pill supply. YEAH, I'D LIKE THAT OPTION, PLEASE.

And they said no. Nope, you don't get to have that anymore, we don't care what the doctor has said. You'll take the generic or you'll take nothing, they said. I've been trying since before my California trip to get this resolved, which means I've run out of my medication for more than a week, now. And I can't think, I can't process normally, I hurt all over, and my doctor has been yelling at anyone he can to give me my drugs. (Yes, I can buy them out of pocket, at $40 a piece. JFC. But I shouldn't have to. Also, that requires effort to GET THEM that I don't even have at the moment. Stupid, maybe. But that's what it is.)

So I'm trying? I'm trying to reply to emails, to my responsibilities, but I can barely decorate my house for the holidays, barely focus when my kids are talking to me, barely keep it together and not burst into tears for no discernible reason other than my body chemistry is jacked to hell. But Canada, O! Canada has stepped up and are sending me meds at their reasonable price, but I have to wait until next week because time travel apparently still isn't a thing. (Thank you, thank you, Canada Pharmacy.) And the fight with my insurance continues.

All of this to say that if I'm not responding, not fulfilling some act that you need me to do, it's because I'm not doing ANYTHING. But I'm trying. And this won't be forever. <-- mostly that is for myself because I am tunneling in and having a hard time seeing things ever becoming different. It's in waves, at least. It's not an all-consuming tsunami of woe.

Are You Actually

Reading this? I'm just curious. Because that's really detail-oriented of you. Feel free to stop reading. But you can see that there's more here, so are you going to keep reading? Really? That's pretty dedicated. I'm impressed. No, really. I'm not being sarcastic, why do you get like that? See, this is the problem I have with your mother - yes. YES. I'm going there. It's time we put all of our cards on the table.

I love you, why are you doing this? After all we've been through? You don't have to be like this. You know, still reading. You could be baking a pie. And then sharing it with me.